You do not have to be some strange conspiracy theorist to wargame what might happen if Uncle Sam shrugged and the USA decided to exit the stage as global policeman and security guarantor. Heck, the Norwegian series you can watch on Netflix, Occupied, is based in a large part on this very premise (and yes, it predates the Trump Administration).
I would argue that any serious nation should have been planning for this for decades, updating their plan every 5-yrs or so. The reasons why the USA might retreat behind her oceans again are many, from political to national disasters. It would not take much for the American flag to fly fewer places in a short period of time.
If you are a rich nation in a rough neighborhood, what would you do to hedge against your friend Uncle Sam going on a strategic vacation?
Well, if I were advising you, this would be part of one Course of Action;
Japan has amassed enough plutonium to make 6,000 atomic bombs as part of a programme to fuel its nuclear plants,
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On Tuesday (Jul 17), a decades-old deal with the United States which allows Japan to reprocess plutonium was renewed, but the pact can be terminated by either side with just six months’ notice.Plutonium reprocessing is meant to create a new and emissions-free fuel source for resource-poor Japan, but the size of its stockpile has started to attract criticism, even from allies.
Plutonium can be used to create nuclear weapons. Although Japan has vowed the material would never be used for military purposes, it has now amassed vastly more plutonium than it can use, since many of its nuclear plants are still offline after the 2011 Fukushima disaster.
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Japan, the only nation in the world to have suffered an atomic bomb attack, insists it would never use its plutonium for military purposes.The reserves are subject to monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has not raised public concerns about the stocks.
But some activists fear Japan views the stockpile as a way of keeping its options open on nuclear weapons.
“Japan appears be caught up in the idea that in an emergency it can produce nuclear weapons with its reprocessing technology,” said Hideyuji Ban, co-director of the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Centre, an anti-nuclear NGO.
Japan is a smart and responsible nation. I will grant them their cover story, and will lose little sleep over it. History sometimes will take sharp turns, smart nations know this.
